Monthly Archives: September 2010

The question of what differentiates between horizontal bamboo floors and those referred to as vertical bamboo floors comes up continuously despite those being the oldest and most classic styles of bamboo flooring.

Here are a couple quick facts:

1. The look is the primary difference between the 2 styles.

2. There is a duty on vertical for an inexpliable reason related to government incompetance, but makes the cost slightly higher on that product.

3. Due to the construction of the floor itself there is a slight advantage in terms of hardness with the bamboo flooring vertical choice.

4. Customers often find the vertical flooring to have less of a “bamboo” look. To some this is an advantage and to others find this to be a turn off.

5. Both styles have choices in stains, engineered, click and hand scraped at this point.

6. The quality of the product can be high or low based on a number of factors NOT DIRECTLY associated with the flooring being horizontal or vertical. In other words there are good floors and bad floors made both ways. The other aspects of the floor like origin of material, manufacturing process, finish, etc… drive the quality.

Caption: LEFT IMAGE: The horizontal bamboo flooring has wider grain and more visible bamboo knots, which are commonly referred to as “elbows”. RIGHT IMAGE: The vertical bamboo flooring is the more narrow look with a much more contemporary style.